Major power outage hits Venezuela’s capital, with Maduro government claiming ‘sabotage’

CARACAS, Venezuela —  Venezuelans awoke Friday to a major power outage in the capital, Caracas, and several states.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government blamed the outage, which it said began about 4:50 a.m., on “electrical sabotage” following a disputed election.

Freddy Nanez, the communications minister, said officials were working to restore power. “Nobody will take away our peace and tranquility of the Venezuelan people,” he wrote in a message shared with journalists on Telegram.

Nanez said in a voice message on Telegram that all 24 of Venezuela’s states had been at least partially affected. He claimed the outage was a “desperate” attempt by Maduro’s opponents to violently oust the president.

Venezuela in 2019, during a period of political unrest, suffered from regular power outages that the government almost always blamed on its opponents, but that energy experts said were the result of brush fires damaging transmission lines and poor maintenance of the country’s hydroelectric infrastructure.

Many of the energy problems have since subsided. Still, following last month’s contested presidential election, officials are quick to blame opponents for even minor disruptions. That was the case on Tuesday, when a brownout affected Caracas and several central states.

Maduro has been tightening his grip on power following last month’s disputed election. Maduro was declared the winner in the fraught July 28 vote despite strong evidence that opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. The move drew international condemnation that the vote lacked transparency.

In Caracas, residents of the capital were taking Friday’s disruption in stride. Traffic during the normally busy rush hour was lighter than usual and some people complained about being unable to communicate with family members due to a lack of cellphone service.

Alejandra Martinez, a 25-year-old salesclerk, said she noticed the power went out when a fan stopped working. “I thought the power would come back and I went back to sleep,” she said while trying to catch a bus to work as dawn broke over Caracas. “But when I woke up, I realized it was an outage.”

Venezuela’s power grid relies heavily on the Guri Dam, a giant hydroelectric power station that was inaugurated in the late 1960s. The electrical system has been burdened by poor upkeep, a lack of alternative energy supplies and a drain of engineering talent as an estimated 8 million Venezuelan migrants have fled economic misery in recent years.